At the 2026 FIFA World Cup, researcher William Peracchio will be keeping a keener eye on the scoreboards than most.
He’s not a soccer fan by nature. Sure, he’ll tune into the World Cup every four years, but he’s got enough on his plate working in tech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), or doing his masters degree in public administration at both Harvard and Stamford.
Still, he’ll be watching this World Cup, and he’s most excited for a “Scorigami.”
A Scorigami is a unique scoreline. The term was coined in 2014 by sportswriter Jon Bois, who recognized scorelines that had never taken place in the NFL. There were, as you would expect, plenty that still hadn’t happened. (There hadn’t, for example, ever been a 15-8 victory, or 25-18).
“Scoragami is a word I just invented, and it refers to the act, and art, of producing a final score in a football game that has never happened before,” Bois wrote.
The Scorigami principle was later applied to other sports. Did you know there still hasn’t been a 138-102 victory in the NBA? And in Major League Baseball, there has never been a 22-0 victory, but there have been two different 23-0 games?
The same Scorigami concept can be applied to this World Cup, and it only took four days for one to almost take place, as Germany beat lowly Curaçao 7-1.
Peracchio should know: Through his love of sports analytics, he has created his own World Cup Scorigami chart — called World Cupigami.
“This is a fun little project,” Peracchio says. “There were some free data sets online … I was just like, it’ll be fun. And if we happen to get a 5-4 barn-burner? All the better.”
(Credit: William Peracchio, World Cupigami)
What is the most likely World Cup Scorigami remaining?
For a Scorigami to happen at this World Cup, it will take either a historically lopsided scoreline or an ultra-competitive goal fest. Thankfully, after FIFA’s decision to expand the tournament to 48 teams, the chances of one of those two things happening are much higher.
For a short time on Sunday, during Germany‘s 7-1 victory over debutants Curaçao, a Scorigami was very much on the cards. A 7-1 wasn’t enough to be unique — it has happened three times before, most notably when Germany itself routed hosts Brazil in the 2014 semifinal. But 8-1? That has never happened before.
So, when Germany forward Kai Havertz scored his team’s seventh in the 88th minute, there was suddenly a chance of history being made. But that final goal never came.
Still, there are plenty of epic mismatches scheduled for the rest of the group stage and other possible Scorigami scorelines include: 8-2, 10-0 and 9-1.
Not all one-sided scorelines will be unique — 8-3 (Hungary vs. Germany, 1954) and 10-1 (Hungary vs. El Salvador, 1982) have already happened — so the next most likely Scorigami would probably be a high-scoring end-to-end thriller. There has never been a 5-4 victory, or a 5-5 draw, although there has been a 6-5 (Brazil vs. Poland, 1938) and 7-5 (Austria vs. Switzerland, 1954).
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Why you should root for a Scorigami
You would think that Scorigamis happen often. In the NBA, for example, the Indiana Pacers’ win over the Chicago Bulls was the first 145-126 victory in league history. There were five Scorigamis in the NFL last season, too. (There were also rare scores, such as 44-22, which had only happened once in NFL history before it occurred twice in three weeks in 2025.)
At the World Cup, though, a Scorigami is much rarer. So rare in fact that it hadn’t happened for 40 years until England notched a unique scoreline with a 6-2 win over Iran in 2022. Before that, Hungary’s 10-1 demolition of El Salvador in the 1982 group stage was the last time it had happened.
There are no prizes for guessing the most common scoreline. The World Cup is the biggest tournament in soccer and often creates cagey, tense games. So, it is no surprise that a 1-0 win has happened 183 times (and counting) in World Cup history. However, there have been more 2-1s (153 occurrences) than 2-0s (113 occurrences).
At its heart, a Scorigami is little more than a niche statistic, and barely even a talking point. But it’s also a regular cause for celebration. Previous NFL Scorigamis have seen fans raise money for charitable causes, and Peracchio is hoping a Scorigami at the World Cup could help do the same.
“If there does happen to be a crazy scorigami, I probably will try to find a charity in whatever country it happened in just to try to retweet,” he says. “If nothing else, I think it’s hopefully just a little bit of fun.”
